Oodgeroo Noonuccal
|birth_place = Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Queensland, Australia |death_date = (aged 72) |death_place = Altona Meadows, Victoria, Australia |resting_place = |resting_place_coordinates = |residence = Moongalba |nationality = Australian |ethnicity = Quandamooka (Aboriginal Australian) |other_names = Kath Walker, Kathleen Ruska |known_for = poetry, acting, writing, Aboriginal rights activism |education = book keeping, typing, & shorthand |alma_mater = |employer = Australian Womens Army Service, Noonuccal-Nughie Education Cultural Centre |occupation = domestic servant, corporal, writer, educator, poet |years_active = |title = |party = Communist Party of Australia |boards = Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) |religion = Aboriginal Australian |spouse = Bruce Walker |partner = |children = Dennis Walker, Vivian Walker |parents = Ted and Lucy Ruska |relations = |signature = |website = National Foundation for Australian Women's Biographical Entry |footnotes =* Mary Gilmore Medal (1970) * Jessie Litchfield Award (1975) * International Acting Award * Fellowship of Australian Writers' Award * Member of the Order of the British Empire * Honorary Doctorate (Macquarie University) * Doctorate (Griffith University)National Foundation for Australian Women's Biographical Entry Accessed 20 February 2009 }} Oodgeroo Noonuccal (3 November 1920 – 16 September 1993) was an Australian poet, political activist, artist, and educator. She was also a campaigner for Australian Aborigine rights. Oodgeroo was best known for her poetry, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse."Oodgeroo Noonuccal." Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement, Vol. 27. Gale, 2007 Life Birth and early life Noonuccal was born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, on North Stradbroke Island (also known as "Minjerribah" or "Minjerribahin") Moreton Bay (east of Brisbane). The place where Oodgeroo was born falls within the traditional land and waters of the Noonuccal people who, since the 1990s, have been more generally identified as part of a "Quandamooka" nation consisting of Nunugal (Amity Point based and affiliated with Moorgumpin or Moreton Island people), the Nughi (who speak or spoke the Guwar language) and the Goenpul (often attributed to the bayside and southern sections of North Stradbroke Island and related Bay islands and waters) . Baptised Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, Oodgeroo Noonuccal was the second youngest of six children to parents Ted and Lucy Ruska. Ted was a labourer and led a strike in 1935; he instilled a fierce sense of justice in his daughter, with whom he shared the dreaming totem Kabul (the carpet snake). She wrote the poems Municipal Gum and Understand Old One. Noonuccal loved the sea and the seashore, but not her schooling. She wrote with her left hand and was punished for it. She left school at age 13 in 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, to work as a domestic servant in Brisbane. In 1942, during World War II with her brothers Eddie and Eric imprisoned as prisoners of war in Singapore, she volunteered for war service in the Australian Women's Army Service. As a communication worker in Army HQ in Brisbane she received training in book keeping, typing and shorthand, reaching the rank of corporal.Cochrane, (1994), p. 13 During her war service “Oodgeroo noticed a big difference in the way she was treated once she had enlisted. She experienced social equality.” During the same year as she enlisted, Oodgeroo married Bruce Walker, an Aboriginal welder and boxer, in 1942, but they had gone their separate ways by the time her first son, Dennis Walker, was born in December 1946. In the early 1950s she began work as a domestic in the household of Raphael Cilento and during this time she conceived and gave birth to her second son Vivian Walker (February 1953–20 February 1991). During this time she joined the Communist Party of Australia, which at the time was the only Australian political party opposed to the White Australia policy. Although she gained much important political experience through the Communist Party, Oodgeroo left the party after a few years because her comrades were not as committed to the fight against racial discrimination as she’d hoped, she found that there was still a degree of sexism and racism within the party, which would have prevented her from gaining prominence or office, and because she was often under pressure to allow other party members to write her speeches for her. Oodgero Noonuccal was also a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to the community.Cochrane, (1994) p. 18; Mitchell, (1987) pp. 197–8 Life as an activist Through the 1960s she began to emerge as a prominent figure, both as a political activist and as a writer. She was Queensland state secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI),Cochrane, (1994), p. 63. and was involved in a number of other political organisations. She was a key figure in the campaign for the reform of the Australian constitution to allow Aboriginal people full citizenship, lobbying Prime Minister Robert Menzies in 1965, and his successor Harold Holt in 1966.Cochrane, (1994), p. 67; Elaine Darling, They spoke out pretty good: politics and gender in the Brisbane Aboriginal Rights Movement 1958–1962 (St Kilda, Vic.: Janoan Media Exchange, c1998.), p. 189. She wrote many books, beginning with We Are Going (1964), the first book to be published by an Aboriginal woman. This first book of poetry was extraordinarily successful, selling out in several editions, and setting Oodgeroo well on the way to be Australia’s highest-selling poet alongside C. J. Dennis.Mitchell, (1987), pp. 200–2 Critics’ responses, however, were mixed, with some questioning whether Oodgeroo, as an Aboriginal person, could really have written it herself. Others were disturbed by the activism of the poems, and found that they were "propaganda" rather than what they considered to be real poetry.Rooney, Brigid, Literary activists: writer-intellectuals and Australian public life, (St Lucia, Qld. : University of Queensland Press, 2009, pp. 68–9 Oodgeroo embraced the idea of her poetry as propaganda, and described her own style as "sloganistic, civil-writerish, plain and simple."Kath Walker, "Aboriginal Literature" Identity 2.3 (1975) pp. 39–40 She wanted to convey pride in her Aboriginality to the broadest possible audience, and to popularise equality and Aboriginal rights through her writing.Cochrane, (1994), p. 37 Oodgeroo won several literary awards, including the Mary Gilmore Medal (1970), the Jessie Litchfield Award (1975), and the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Award. She was also awarded an MBE in 1970. In 1972 she bought a property on North Stradbroke Island (also known as Minjerribah) which she called Moongalba ('sitting-down place'), and established the Noonuccal-Nughie Education and Cultural Centre. And in 1977, a documentary about her, called Shadow Sister, was released. It was directed and produced by Frank Heimans and photographed by Geoff Burton. It describes her return to Moongalba and her life there.Shadow Sister: A Film Biography of Aboriginal Poet Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), MBE In a 1987 interview, she described her education program at Moongalba, saying that over "the last seventeen years I've had 26,500 children on the island. White kids as well as black. And if there were green ones, I'd like them too ... I'm colour blind, you see. I teach them about Aboriginal culture. I teach them about the balance of nature."Mitchell, (1987), p. 206. Oodgeroo was committed to education at all levels, and collaborated with universities in creating programs for teacher education that would lead to better teaching in Australian schoolsRhonda Craven, "The role of teachers in the Year of Indigenous people: Oodgeroo of the Tribe Noonuccal (Kath Walker)", Aboriginal Studies Association Journal, No. 3 (1994), p. 55-56. In 1985 she appeared with her grandson, Denis Walker (Jr) in Bruce Beresford’s film The Fringe Dwellers. In 1988 she adopted a traditional name: Oodgeroo (meaning "paperbark tree") Noonuccal (her tribe's name).Notable Biographies: Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement: Supplement (Mi-So): Oodgeroo Noonuccal Biography That same year she returned her MBE in protest and to make a political statement at the condition of her people in the year of Australia's Bicentenary celebrations. She died in 1993. A play has since been written by Sam Watson entitled Oodgeroo: Bloodline to Country commemorating Oodgeroo Noonuccal's life, being a play swinging around Oodgeroo Noonuccal's real life experience as an Aboriginal woman on board a flight hijacked by Palestinian terrorists on her way home from a committee meeting in Nigeria for the World Black and African Festival of Arts and CultureSorensen, Rosemary (8 June 2009) "An ode to Oodgeroo" The Australian Accessed 8 June 2009 Publications Poetry * We are Going: Poems. Brisbane: Jacaranda, 1964. * The Dawn is at Hand: Poems. Brisbane & Sydney: Jacaranda, 1966. * My People: A Kath Walker collection. Milton, Qld: Jacaranda Press, 1970. * Quandamooka, the Art of Kath Walker (1985) * Kath Walker in China. Beijing: International Culture Publishing Cooperative /Brisbane: Jacaranda Press, 1988.Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920-1993), Australian Poetry Library, Web, Mar. 16, 2012. *''The Dawn is at Hand: Selected poems. London & New York: Marion Boyers, 1992. * ''Oodgeroo (1994) *''I Am Proud, and other poems''. Warners Bay, NSW: Picaro Press, 2010. Non-fiction * Towards a Global Village in the Southern Hemisphere. Nathan, Qld: Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University, 1989. * The Spirit of Australia (with photos by Reg Morrison). Silverwater, NSW: Golden Press, 1989. *''Legends of Our Land'' (with photos by Reg Morrison). Marrickville, NSW: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990. *''Australia's Unwritten History: More legends of our land''. Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. Art *''Quandamooka: The art of Kath Walker'' (edited by Ulli Beier). Bathurst, NSW: Robert Brown, 1985. Juvenile * Stradbroke Dreamtime (illustrated by Lorraine Hannay). Sydney & London: Angus & Robertson, 1972. **published in U.S. as Dreamtime: Aboriginal stories. New York: Nothrop, Lee, & Shepard, 1994. * Father Sky and Mother Earth. Milton, Qld: Jacaranda, 1981. * Little Fella (illustrated by Pat Beattie). Darwin, NT: Northern Territory Dept. of Education, 1986. * The Rainbow Serpent (with Kabul Oodgeroo Noonuccal). Canberra: Australian Government Publishing, 1988. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Oodgeroo Noonuccal, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Dec. 28, 2014. Audio / video *''Oodgeroo Noonuccal'' (VHS). Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corp., 1962. See also * List of Australian poets References * * * Beier, Ulli. Quandamooka, the art of Kath Walker (1985) ISBN 0949267120 *''Oodgeroo: A tribute'' (edited by Adam Shoemaker) (1994) ISBN 0702228001 Notes External links ;Poems *"Last of His Tribe" *"No More Boomerang" *Oodgeroo Noonuccal at the Australian Poetry Library (162 poems) ;Audio / video *Videoclip from 'This is your life' * Listen to a recording of Oodgeroo Noonuccal reading her poem 'We Are Going' on australianscreen online * 'We Are Going' was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia Registry in 2010 ;About * National Foundation for Australian Women's Biographical Entry * [http://www.library.uq.edu.au/fryer/worth_fighting/2.html University of Queensland's Fryer Library OnLine Exhibition "Oodgeroo Noonuccal Kath Walker 1920–1993"] * Interview from 1981 * Article discussing Sam Watson's play about OodOodgeroo Noonuccal * Oodgeroo: ‘A keeper of the law, a teller of stories’ Review of Sam Watson play about Oodgeroo Noonuccal ;Etc. *University of Queensland Fryer Library OnLine Exhibition "1967 Referendum: Queensland organisations and activists" * Guide to the Papers of Oodgeroo Noonuccal Catalogue of manuscripts at Fryer Library (University of Queensland) Category:1920 births Category:1993 deaths Category:Australian communists Category:Australian human rights activists Category:Australian non-fiction writers Category:Australian poets Category:Indigenous Australian writers Category:Australian women writers Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Queensland Category:Australian indigenous rights activists Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:English-language poets Category:Poets